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12.10.12

Photos of Man With No Face, Fears His Unborn Child Will Look Like Him

A FATHER-to-be has
spoken for the first time about living with NO FACE – and how he’s terrified he has passed his condition onto his
unborn child.

Mohammad Latif
Khatana, 32, from Kashmir, India, cannot see or work due to the severe creases
on his face

.

Strangers spit on
the road as he walks, disgusted by his features.

He is now over the
moon that his wife is seven months pregnant, but worried his son or daughter
will look like him.

He said: “I cannot wait to be a father and have some
happiness in my life. But I worry every day and pray my child is not born like
me.”

Latif, who lives
high in the mountains with his 25-year-old wife Salima, in Tuli Bana, in Jammu
and Kashmir, travels to Srinagar for four months of the year to beg and find
money.

He was born with a
small lump on his face but it has continued to grow and form huge flaps across
his face, making it impossible for him to see.

Unsightly … people jeer and spit at poor Latif in the
street

He said: “My mother still cries when she looks at me.
She feels so much guilt and cannot understand why her youngest boy was cursed.”

Latif is the
youngest of two brothers and three sisters and is the only child suffering this
condition.

Without his
siblings he would’ve lived a
very lonely childhood without friends.

“Nobody wanted to play with me as a child,” he added. “The boys in my village used to beat me and taunt me
every day. I lost my left eye when I was eight years old and they used to call
me one-eye freak.”

As an adult Latif
has continued to face many struggles. He is a strong man but because of his
failing eyesight and facial condition no-one will give him a job.

He said: “I’d love to do an honest day’s work like a normal man providing for his family. It
would make me so proud, but no one will give me a chance. I have to beg and
hope people take pity on me so that I can feed my family.”

Worries … Latif fears his unborn child will inherit
his condition

Latif, who
sometimes earns 400 Rupees (£5) a day begging, remembers many occasions when
people spat on him as they walked past.

He recalled: “Three young girls walked past me once and
they spat at my feet and ran away with scarves covering their mouths. I was so
embarrassed.

“I was shocked at how cruel they were. I
felt very depressed for days. But I had to pick myself up and get on with it.”

However, four
years ago Latif finally met the love of his life.

His parents tried
hard to find him a wife but no girl would come forward, until Latif heard about
Salima.

“My wife has only one foot, and so for many
years she struggled to meet a husband. As soon as we met we knew we were right
for one another,” he
remembers. “We were both medically incomplete, we were
a good match.”

They married in a
traditional Muslim summer ceremony with 400 guests, in August 2008, and have
been very happy ever since.

He added: “I feel very blessed to have met Salima, she
is good for me.

Shelter … Latif’s begs from his makeshift home in Srinagar for fourth
months a year

“I feel a little normal now I have a wife, a
little more complete than I did before. And now that she is pregnant with our
first child I am even happier. No matter how I look I am a happy man right now.”

But Latif, who is
in no pain and takes no medication, still worries his child will be born with
the same facial condition.

He said: “We can’t afford to see a doctor now, we’re too poor. And no doctor in the past has
told me not to have children. I can only hope and pray that our baby will be
healthy.”

Latif’s brother decided to sell some land eight
years ago to pay for a trip to send Latif to see a doctor. But there was nothing
they could do.

He remembered: “The doctor told me that my condition was
due to a solar eclipse when my mother was pregnant with me. I don’t know whether to believe him.

“And now there is so many veins going
through my creases that surgery would be too dangerous. I have lost all hope of
help.